Finding Christmas
by MerryAnchor16
Summary: (For kumiko-sama-chan's exchange collection) In Raftel Mental Health Unit for Young People, thirteen year old Zoro finds Christmas again through the arrival of a new patient. (Warning: Mental health conditions are mentioned but are not heavily described). Rated T for now. One-shot.


**AN: For Kumiko-sama-chan's holiday exchange. I'm so sorry, it's really bad. But I hope you enjoy.**

**Warnings: Zoro is supposed to be schizophrenic in this but there are no really bad triggers in this fic. I am aware of what schizophrenia is and how it occurs in people (I know people personally who suffer with it). Zoro's mental condition is used in the plot but not as a means for angst or any upsetting situations. Likewise, though his condition isn't fully outspoken, it is implied that Sanji has an eating disorder. Yet again, I am aware of eating disorders and how awful they can be and the effects they have on people. However there are no stressful situations or intended triggers in this fic.**

**I would like to point out that there is one scene where Zoro does get upset but it is not fully described or intended to cause any discomfort or distress to the reader.**

**Please leave a review if you would like to~ Thank you x**

* * *

Outside it was snowing again, the little white flakes catching the invisible currents in the air and they danced on them wildly before joining the others on the ground. The sky was a mixture of greys, creating a stark contrast with the crisp white that covered the grass. It was a beautiful sight for anyone to wake up to, especially given that it was Christmas morning- a true White Christmas indeed.

Roronoa Zoro sat on the window ledge looking out. His legs were spread out under him and he had the fingers of one hand curved around his lips like prison bars with his head leaned against the cold glass of the window. Behind him, the room was decorated with the season's festivity; paper chains were strung from the ceiling; tinsle covered anything that it could; and sat in the corner was the tree, brightly decorated with presents slotted snugly underneath.

Despite them being all his Zoro didn't want the presents so he left them where they were, unopened, untouched and uncared for. They'd be put in his room later, he knew, but he'd just shove them away in the wardrobe with the others from two years prior without a moments hesitation. What was the point in presents if you had no one to share them with? Outside, ankle deep in the snow, the little girl waved at him and he raised his hand, waving back, before she vanished into thin air.

Zoro sighed. Everyone else had gone home for Christmas. They had families and friends and loved ones who wanted them. And what did Zoro have? No one but the people in his head to keep him company.

Literally.

That was the whole reason he was in here. Raftel Mental Health Unit for Young People didn't take in sane people and Zoro wasn't sane. He had been once, but that was before the fire and his adopted family's death and he didn't see the people and the things he saw. His carer said they weren't real once but Zoro disagreed; if they were non-existent then why did they feel so real? How could they talk to him and touch him otherwise? Either way his carer had been adamant that he was not, under any circumstance, to make any more verbal contact because he had to 'Try and think about getting better again'. Zoro had huffed- it was easier said than done. After so many years with the people, sitting in the orphanage with no real friends to call on, they'd become his best friends. He didn't want to let them go.

Movement in the garden made him look to see the little girl again. She was running round, throwing clumps of snow into the air and laughing all the while. Zoro had named her Nami. She was a pretty girl, three years younger than him at ten years old, with fiery orange hair and big brown eyes. She liked counting and money and she liked it when he read her stories. She was really good at drawing maps too but she was very loud and liked having stuff go her way.

Nami looked up from the snowman she was beginning to build and waved as a boy came over to her. Zoro smiled as one of his favourite people joined her. The boy waved at Nami then turned and waved at Zoro, a huge grin on his face.

Zoro called this one Luffy and he was his best friend. They did everything together and he was the one Zoro saw most and spoke to most. His carer had been apprehensive when Zoro explained that Luffy told him to do things but soon calmed down when they had realised Luffy meant no harm and only wanted to play all the time. Luffy was always dressed in blue shorts, a crimson shirt and his strawhat. He had black hair that stuck up at all angles and a scar under his left eye. Zoro chuckled as he watched the boy 'help' Nami with building her snowman but when he knocked the head off it she snapped and slapped him over the head, sending him sprawling into the snow.

Suddenly the door knocked and Zoro's happiness at seeing the two dropped as they vanished, taking the poor, mutilated snowman with them. Reluctantly, Zoro pulled his gaze away from the window as a head appeared from around the door,

"You okay, Zoro-ya?"

His carer stood in the doorway, smiling warmly at him, but Zoro turned his head away and scowled down at his legs, "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" He pressed, stepping into the room and pushing the door to after him. He sat himself in the armchair opposite Zoro with the same warm, approachable smile. Trafalgar Law was the youngest doctor in the entire complex at just the age of twenty three and Zoro was his first patient. He was a tall man, with cropped black hair that looked almost blue in the hallway lights and had a few rogue, and possibly banned, tattoos on his arms, hands and chest. Zoro had only seen the chest one briefly once when he and Luffy had snuck out for a late walk and they'd passed the staff room to see Law getting changed out of his white scrubs. He and Luffy had tried to creep past but the young medic caught them and he was sent back to his room, his face red with a blush from a stern telling off. Yet Trafalgar was a nice guy all in all and perhaps he didn't deserve the cold shoulder that Zoro oh-so-regularly gave him but the doctor didn't believe that Nami and Luffy were real, no matter how many times Zoro said they were and that angered the younger boy.

So when Law raised an eyebrow expectantly at him Zoro merely scowled in response and mumbled something. Law tilted his head, his angular chin exaggerated by his goatee, "What was that?"

Zoro rested his forehead on his knees, "I said _go away._"

The doctor smiled good-naturedly and leaned back into his seat, the cushion behind him puffing up with the new weight, "I'm afraid I can't Zoro. So, are you going to open your presents?"

Zoro peeked out from a gap under his arm that was wrapped round his legs, "No," He said.

"Why not?"

"I don't want them."

"Why don't you want them?"

"Because..."

"Because... What?"

"I just don't. Christmas is about sharing. I can't share them with anyone. They're useless."

Law propped up his head with his hand, "What _do _you want, Zoro?"

Zoro lifted his head to look the man in the eyes, "I want to go home."

"Back to the Children's Home?"

"Yes."

Law sat up, this was the most he'd got out of the kid in months and he couldn't let this opportunity go. He almost couldn't contain the hopeful smile, "Why do you want to go back?"

Zoro smirked at him, a mischievous and cunning look, "Because then you'd go away."

Trafalgar deflated and sighed heavily, rubbing at his tired eyes, "Fine. Just promise me you'll come and eat lunch."

"M'not hungry."

"Zoro, please. You didn't have breakfast."

"I wasn't hungry. I didn't want it."

"Just try, Zoro. Please?"

Zoro said nothing, watching Law silently with sulky eyes as the man rose from the chair and opened the door, "There's a new kid- a boy, younger than you- who was admitted yesterday. He's probably scared and alone... I'll take you to him, if you want. To make a new friend?"

Zoro heard the hopeful note in his voice and his little heart did go out to this new boy- he too knew how it felt to be new here once- but to be abandoned on Christmas Eve? Poor kid. However, he didn't feel like seeing any more people than he already had to so he shook his head, "Not now."

Trafalgar nodded, "Okay. But if you see him say hello and be nice, yeah?"

Zoro nodded and the doctor smiled encouragingly before stepping out into the hall and shutting the door behind him.

Slowly Zoro looked back at the window where Luffy and Nami were having a snowball fight. A small smile pulled at his lips.

* * *

It was after lunch, an unwanted meal that had been forced down under the watchful grey eyes of his carer, that Zoro saw a boy.

He was standing at the bottom of the hall looking around with blue eyes. One of those portable IV's on wheels stood next to him and he clung to it like a chameleon to a stick with two small hands and his body was nothing but pressed up against it. His pajamas seemed to hang off him in shapeless folds and Zoro stalled, wondering whether it was just air under the fabric rather than a body. The boy looked terrified behind his long fringe, his hair a soft yellow under the lights.

Boy looked at boy before Zoro realised he was staring and turned his gaze- he knew how uncomfortable it felt to be stared at.

"Can you tell me where the bathroom is?" The voice was soft and barely there, like it hadn't been used in months or even years and it took Zoro a moment to process it had been the other boy talking: the blonde's mouth had barely moved at all. He raised his arm, pointing dumbly at the door on the left a little behind him and stood aside as the other child nodded and set off, the little wheels of the IV squeaking and trundling along the carpeted floor with muffled sound. Zoro watched him go. He looked sad, this little boy, with his head hung low and the drip in his arm. He took small shuffling steps. He didn't bound or take confident strides like Zoro sometimes did. The green haired boy had the feeling that this child had seen something he'd rather wished he hadn't.

As the bathroom door softly shut, Zoro turned around to meet the face of Luffy standing next to him. The raven haired teen was frowning with one hand scratching questionably at the back of his head with his eyes fixed on the door, "He looks lonely," Luffy said simply. Zoro couldn't have put it better himself.

After that first meeting in the corridor, Zoro spent the rest of the day trying to figure the other out. He'd pieced together random information from Trafalgar and a few other nurses he'd overheard talking. The little boy was called Sanji or so the child had told them. He had no medical records and had been taken in off the streets and rushed to the hospital in the city centre a few weeks before after he'd been found collapsed and on the boarder line of starving to death. An orphan, apparently.

He was still unwell. Zoro had overheard Law speaking to one of the male nurses earlier about how they were trying to wean the boy back onto larger and healthier portions and to get him back to a healthy weight. Zoro knew how difficult that must be for Sanji- he'd seen many young people admitted with the same case though not as severe as the blonde's.

So he'd watched from afar as Sanji sat at the dinner table, pushing the food around with his fork and taking very few bites. He sat alone at a seperate table from everyone else and, though he wanted too, Zoro didn't move to sit with him- he felt like his presence would go unwanted and the blonde looked deep in thought over something anyway.

So he and Luffy devised a plan. It was quite a simple plan. Easy to follow with a, hopefully, good outcome.

So now the green haired boy stood in his room, holding the doors of his wardrobe open and looking up at the vast array of colours and prints of wrapping paper from all those long forgotten and unwanted presents. He pulled one out of the stacked pile tentatively and ducked as the balance fell askew and tens of wrapped boxes came tumbling out, raining down from above him. From his seat on the bed, Luffy laughed hysterically and Zoro crawled out from the mess, scowling at him.

"What are you doing?" Nami asked appearing, sitting on the carpeted floor with her legs crossed and her head propped in her hands.

"We're going to cheer Sanji up!" Luffy grinned, filling her in on the details as Zoro got up and snatched the large bin liner he'd taken from Law's office whilst the doctor was not around. He sat back down next to Nami and began putting the gifts into the bag.

The little girl twirled a lock of ginger hair around her finger absent mindedly, "But... Aren't these your presents?" She asked.

"What's the point in having them? I don't want them," Zoro grunted, he was pulling off the name tags as he went along.

"But why?" Nami said, "People bought you those things! What if they're expensive?"

"I don't want them, Nami!" Zoro sighed.

"There's only ever one thing that you want..." Nami murmured, her face suddenly sad.

"But you can't buy it," Luffy said.

Zoro stiffened slightly, "Shut up."

"You can't buy family," Nami finished.

Zoro slammed a present more roughly than he'd intended into the bag, "Shut up!" He yelled, sinking lower in his sitting position on the carpet and running his hands through his hair in the now empty room, images of fire in his mind.

* * *

Trafalgar never usually questioned it when he found Zoro out of his room wandering the halls at night. He'd usually just send the boy back to his room and wait around until he was sure the child was asleep before returning to his work. But, as he watched the young boy make a slow pace past his office door with large bin liner which he was dragging along, he felt that this was an appropriate thing to be curious about. He got up from behind his desk, leaving his paperwork, and left the room only having to walk slowly to catch up with the struggling boy, "Zoro, what are you doing?"

Zoro didn't stop walking but replied as he heaved the heavy bag along, "I'm... helping..."

"'Helping'? What do you mean?"

"Helping... Sanji..." Zoro managed before letting go of the bag to take a rest, panting softly at the extertion of the distance he'd travelled. Trafalgar frowned,

"What? Helping him how? Zoro, what's in the bag?"

"My presents," Zoro said simply before smiling slightly, "I'm giving them to Sanji. He looked sad and I don't want them... and it's Christmas..."

Trafalgar's serious eyes softened dramatically at what he was hearing, "You're giving them all to Sanji?"

"Yes. All of them."

The doctor regarded the green haired boy before him with an almost admiring gaze, "Zoro that's... that's very kind. Are you taking them to his room?"

Zoro nodded but Trafalgar held out his hand for the bag of presents, "I have a better idea." He took the handles and heaved the thing over one shoulder, "Come on," He said and set off down the hall, Zoro trailing close behind.

* * *

Boxing Day morning, a cry of shock had Zoro opening the door of the Recreational Room as he walked past with Luffy who'd appeared shortly after breakfast. The raven haired boy chuckled happily at the scene Zoro was taking in and then disappeared.

Sanji, IV still attached to his arm, was looking in awe at the enormous pile of the gifts that Zoro and Trafalgar had placed under the tree the previous night. Sanji's blue eyes that were sad and dull yesterday, were now bright and wide- full of life again- as Law, whom was sat in the armchair, smiled and told the blonde of how Santa had dropped off his presents late by mistake. The little boy happily drank in the tale and clutched the box Law had passed him tightly to his chest.

"Are they all mine?!" Sanji asked, looking shocked. Zoro slipped into the room and leaned against the wall, smiling. There must've been at least 60 presents in that pile. The green haired teen felt warm inside and, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't wipe the smile from his face at the little boy's reaction. All these happy emotions he'd not associated with Christmas in years came flooding back and it felt like he was sharing it with his foster family again. That that was their Christmas tree, that that was Kuina opening her presents rather than Sanji. Zoro's eyes burned slightly but he blinked it down, content to watch as the little boy ripped open present after present with such joy.

Zoro realised, with some sense of surprise, that this was the happiest he'd been in a long time. And, judging from Sanji's face, this was the happiest the blonde had been too. Those years after his foster family's death, those years being an orphan with no one to share his gifts with- isolated and alone with his condition... All that was blinded out in the brightness of the young boy's smile, laughter, and gasps of joy.

Zoro felt as if he'd found Christmas all over again and, from Sanji's face, he guessed the other had just discovered it too.

Never had giving gifts felt more rewarding than the receiving to him and Zoro knew for certain who he'd be sharing his presents with next year.


End file.
